Stranger in Town

CHAPTER 2





I-80 Freeway, Eastbound

October 9, 2012



No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t peel my eyes away from the digital numbers on the dashboard clock in front of me. It was 12:45 p.m., and I had two options: break the law by speeding or accept the fact I was going to be late. I glanced around, taking in the reflection of the rear-view mirror, and slammed my foot down on the pedal.

Two hours earlier I’d been enjoying a cheese soufflé with my friend Maddie when my cell phone rang. I hadn’t recognized the number and sent it to voicemail. But something about seeing the little white number “1” circled in red on my iPhone sent my OCD into overdrive. Turning the phone over and setting it down on the counter didn’t help things either. I knew when I flipped it back around the number would still be there, taunting me like a baker dangling a fresh, glazed donut in front of my face. Take it, you know you want to.

So I did.

The message began, Hi, umm, my name is Noah Tate. I got your card from someone I met. I’m looking for a private investigator, and he recommended I contact you. If you’re not too busy, I’d like to meet later today. I realize it’s short notice…

There was a moment of silence, and then …

Please. If you could just help me. I don’t know what else to do.

It was Saturday. My day off. I had a policy about not taking new clients on the weekends. It was how I convinced myself I wasn’t really a workaholic. But something about the way the man’s voice cracked in between his words intrigued me. He was desperate, and I wanted to know why.

When I called back, the man wouldn’t say why he wanted to hire me. He just said he’d rather not discuss it over the phone, and asked if we could meet in Evanston, Wyoming in two hours, a place just past the Utah border. Although it was less than two hours away, I’d never been to Wyoming in my life.

I exited the freeway in Evanston and searched for the restaurant that Mr. Tate had described as log-cabin style. In a sea of fast-food joints, it wasn’t hard to find. An eight-foot tall carved moose kept watch out front. Only a few cars were parked on the lot, one of them being a vacated black Dodge Ram with an expensive, after-market grill on front. It was flashy, and polished to a buff shine. Content with my Audi, I’d never fully learned to appreciate trucks before, but this one demanded it.

Across the street at the McDonald’s, a young mother and her two boys sat at a table beneath the golden arches. One of the boys shoved a fry in each one of his nostrils and made a face at his mother, who wasn’t fazed in the least. Not to be outdone, the other boy sucked some soda through a straw and ejected it. The liquid landed on a pile of chicken nuggets she was eating. The boys giggled until their mother gave them a look all mothers give when they’re about to go McCrazy.

I reclined my seat back and closed my eyes. Some time later, I woke up and looked around. There was no sign of Mr. Tate or his beige SUV anywhere. How long had I been out? Fifteen minutes? Thirty? It felt like an hour. I glanced down at my phone. Forty-five minutes had gone by.

I checked my text messages and had received one written in all caps: BE THERE SOON, NOAH TATE.

I never understood what compelled a person to show up late without any regard for the person they’d inconvenienced. I dialed Mr. Tate’s number. It went to voicemail. “Wait fifteen more minutes,” I said to myself, “then leave.”

Fourteen minutes later, I turned the key in the ignition and put the car in reverse, almost backing into the beige SUV that whizzed across the intersection and into the parking lot at warp speed. The vehicle jerked to a stop, and a slender, red-faced man with no hair to speak of opened the door and scurried out. He smoothed some crumbs off of his expensive-looking, button-up shirt, glanced around, and advanced in my direction.

“Mr. Tate?”

The man nodded, sticking his hand through my open window.

I didn’t take it.

“Call me Noah, please.”

“You’re late,” I said.

“I’m sorry. I sent you a text. Didn’t you get it?”

“That’s your excuse: ‘you sent me a text?’”

He shrugged. “I tried to leave on—”

“Call next time,” I said. “Or I might not be around when you get here.” I got out of the car. “Should we go in?”

He nodded and followed me inside.

The waiter seated us at a wooden table with legs made of thick, knotty logs. Black and white photographs were haphazardly glued along the top and had been covered with some type of lacquered glaze, sealing them in place. The photographs looked like they’d been taken several decades earlier and showed what the town was like before it turned into what it was today.

Once we were seated, Mr. Tate looked both ways before sliding a bank envelope over to me. The look on his face made me feel like we were making a drug exchange. I took the money, setting it to the side. I hadn’t agreed to anything—not yet.

“I’m not clear about why you wanted to hire me,” I said. “I need to know before I accept the job.”

“I didn’t want to discuss it over the phone.”

“Why not?”

He tapped his pointer finger on the table and whistled a few notes from an unfamiliar tune. “It’s not an easy subject to discuss in front of my wife.”

“Your wife isn’t here now,” I said.

I thought about all the reasons a man would need to discuss something away from the watchful eye of their suspicious spouse, the most prominent being cheating or something having to do with money. But Mr. Tate didn’t appear to have money problems, and he didn’t seem like the unfaithful type either. Then again, the best cheaters never did.

“It’s not what you think,” he said.

I shrugged.

“How do you know what I think?”

“You wrinkled your face just now like I’ve done something wrong,” he said. “I haven’t.”

“I’d like to know why I’m here.”

He leaned back in the chair, laced his fingers together, and rested them on the edge of the table. “A couple years ago a young girl named Olivia Hathaway was kidnapped a few hours from here.”

The name seemed vaguely familiar. “Where was she taken?”

“From a grocery store in Pinedale.”

“Is Pinedale in—”

He nodded. “Wyoming, yes.”

“What happened?”

His shoulder bobbed up and down.

“No one knows for sure. They were shopping at the time, the girl and her mother. Her mother remembers telling Olivia to hold on to the side of the cart while she looked at something, but when she turned back around, Olivia was gone. She searched every aisle with the store employees, but found no sign of her anywhere.”

“They never found her—dead or alive?”

He shook his head.

“Police combed the area, formed search parties, and put her picture up on every post, billboard, and store window. By the time they were through, they’d gone over every inch of Pinedale at least once. There wasn’t a soul in the state of Wyoming that didn’t know the girl was missing.”

“And there were no witnesses?” I said.

“None that lived to talk about it.”

I sipped my water.

“So there was someone who saw what happened?”

“A store employee discovered an elderly woman dead in the parking lot right after Olivia was taken. She’d been stabbed once, and then run over.”

“By a vehicle?”

He nodded.

“A car.”

“She must have seen something,” I said.

His demeanor conveyed much more than a person who was sharing a story. He was connected somehow.

“Is Olivia your daughter?”

He swallowed hard and glanced out the window.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t imagine how hard it would be to lose a child.”

A single tear formed in the corner of his eyelid. He quickly swept it away. “Olivia Hathaway is not my daughter.”

I set my glass down and looked up. “If she’s not your daughter, why are you here and why tell me this story?”

“My daughter’s name is Savannah,” he said. “Savannah Tate.”